Have you ever noticed how many angry people there are at peace rallies? Social action aroused righteousness. Righteousness ultimately starves you to death. If you want to be free more than you want to be right, you have to let go of righteousness, of being right. This reminds me of a story. There's this Chinese boatman, and he hits another boat in the fog. He starts swearing at the other boatman. "You SOB! Why didn't you look where you were going?" Then the fog lifts for a moment, and he sees there is nobody in the other boat. And he feels like a fool. Righteousness is roughly the same thing.-Ram Dass, Polishing The Mirror

Welcome to the world of South London in the last decade of the nineteenth century. It was frowsy; it was shabby; the shops were small and generally dirty. It had none of the power or the energy of the more important part of the city on the other side of the Thames. It moved at a slower pace. All the accounts of it, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, describe it as a distinct and alien place. It was in a sense cut off from the life of the greater London; this may account for the air of exhaustion, and of torpor, which could hit the unwary. It was the site of a small and noisome trades such as the hat-making and leather-tanning. Factories abounded for the manufacture of biscuits, jam and pickles. Glue factories stood adjacent to timber warehouses and slaughterhouses. The predominant smells were those of vinegar, and of dog dung, and of smoke, and of beer, compounded of course by the stink of poverty. By the end of the nineteenth century Kennington, the earliest home of Charles Chaplin, had all the characteristics of a slum.-Peter Ackroyd, Charlie Chaplin: A Brief Life

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” -Albert Einstein

.............is a superb blog for those interested in investing. While Ben's focus is on financial instruments and their markets, us real estate investors can find his thoughts useful as well. Two excerpts:"You always have to think in terms of total return when thinking about income investments, not just the dividend or bond yield." (Which means to me: don't forget you have to sell the property and pay the income taxman before you really know how well the investment performed. More often than not, the return of the investment is just as important as the return on investment)"As an investor you should be saying no to way more investment opportunities then you say yes to. Just because something’s available doesn’t mean it’s necessary." (If only it was more clear to which we should say NO, then life would be much simpler.)

Unfortunately, most people these days do not have the patience to watch long-term trends develop. Instead, we have been trained by the mainstream media to have the attention spans of toddlers. We bounce from one 48-hour news cycle to the next, eagerly looking forward to the next “scandal” that is going to break.

And when the next financial crash does strike, the mainstream media is going to talk about what a “surprise” it is. But for those that are watching the long-term trends, it is not going to be a surprise at all. We will have seen it coming a mile away.

For bewildered and increasingly quietist Americans, the center holds mostly in family, religion, a few friends, the avoidance of the cinema and nightly news, the rote of navigating to work and coming home, trying to stay off the dole and taking responsibility for one’s own disasters — as the world grows ever more chaotic in our midst.-Victor Davis Hanson, as excerpted from this essay

In these later years I’ve become more flexible in spirit rather than bone. I add a bit more or a bit less, or leave it in the oven for a few more minutes than the prescribed time. Maybe I add a touch more sweetness or bite. Or even a fingersnip more of salt. Maybe something doesn’t work. And that’s ok – there’s always the opportunity to make it again. There can be a bit of forgiveness in cooking and baking – even the small failures can be overlooked when you share a meal that was made with your own hand.

Average boomer net worth, which was over $200,000 pre-recession, is now only $143,000. The median outstanding mortgage balance for a 50-to-69-year-old is up from $48,743 in 1992 to $118,000 -- and 56% say they may apply for another mortgage. "Boomers are just not planning that far ahead for some of the health issues and limitations they will face later in life," says Jeremy Burbank, a vice president at Neilson. "They look around and have a general reticence for things that are labeled as seniors products, including housing. Even with possible renovations to their homes, they're focused on updates instead of aging-friendly features. They just aren't ready to settle yet."
-Robert Carr, as excerpted from this National Real Estate Investor essay

Cigars had burned low, and we were beginning to sample the disillusionment that usually afflicts old school friends who have met again as men and found themselves with less in common then they had believed they had. Rutherford wrote novels; Wyland was one of the Embassy secretaries; he had just given us dinner at Tempelhof - not very cheerfully, I fancied, but with the equanimity which a diplomat must always keep on tap for such occasions. It seemed likely that nothing but the fact of being three celibate Englishmen in a foreign capital could have brought us together, and I had already reached the conclusion that the slight touch of priggishness which I remembered in Wyland Tertius had not diminished with the years and an M.V.O. Rutherford I liked more; he had ripened well out of the skinny, precocious infant whom I had once alternately bullied and patronized. The probability that he was making much more money and having a more interesting life than either of us, gave Wyland and me our one mutual emotion - a touch of envy.-James Hilton, LostHorizon

One of Freud's best rules of thumb for determining what a person was unconsciously feeling was: "A negation is as good as an affirmation." Listen with the third ear and you will hear the echo. "It's not the money, it's the principal." (It's the money) "I'm not mad, but...." (I'm mad)-Sam Keen, Fire In The Belly: On Being a Man

"But the commercial real estate market is cyclical and, like everything else in life, it can be unpredictable. What's more, we can often be partially responsible for our own misfortunes."-Elaine Misonzhnik, as excerpted from here

....Dance Blue is a happening thing. Our youngest was one of some 900 UK students participating in the 24 hour dance marathon (and no, they did not dance like this for the whole time, but no sitting, no sleeping and no leaving the gym). This was the tenth Dance Blue, and this year they raised over $1,600,000 for this worthy cause. Sorry I'm unable to deliver the sound with the video. Just know that it was energizing and a bit heavy on the bass. As this blog has noted before: the kids will be just fine.